


Connection

by SherlockMalfoy



Series: Iron Squib and Other Magical Tales [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dark, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-12 21:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockMalfoy/pseuds/SherlockMalfoy
Summary: To win the war, Harry Potter lost everything that mattered most. His life. His family. His son.And Tony Stark? Well... all he really wanted was to know someone gave a damn.AU HP-DH, AU-MCU where Tony is Potter's squib child





	Connection

**Author's Note:**

> I love writing HP crossovers, and this is my first time attempting to blend in some MCU to a fic. This one is going to be, well, I honestly don't know. This is a one-shot, and I may continue it into a series.
> 
> TIMELINE NOTE: HP Timeline moved BACK so that Harry was born in 1952. It goes AU at the point where Hermione, Ron, and Harry are captured and taken to Malfoy Manor. Ron and Hermione manage to escape with Olivander and Griphook. Harry doesn't overpower Draco, but does disarm and defeat Draco in a skirmish prior to the Battle of Hogwarts, earning the mastery of the Elder Wand at that time.  
> MCU Timeline - Peggy Carter is the muggle aunt of Hermione Granger, and with her military connections have been smuggling mugglborn and squibs out of the country and away from Voldemort's regime. Howard and Maria die in 1987 as opposed to 1991.

 

"We're going to get out of this Luna," Harry whispered to her in the dark of the Malfoy dungeon. He held her close, her head resting against his chest. She was so thin, so frail. Had been for months.

They didn't come to drag her for torture anymore.

No. The damage to Luna Lovegood was already done. Her bony limbs pulled close, trying to protect the lump in her abdomen. They had stopped using the cruciatis on her once she'd started showing.

But Harry... Oh... Harry Potter was a puppet. A toy to be broken.

Impervious to the imperius. And death would not do... not while he housed one of the Dark Lord's most precious of treasures locked inside his head. They had bypassed cruciatis months ago. Now... Now his body was wracked with pain. His magical core pushed to it's furthest limits just to keep him alive. Keep them alive.

"We'll get out. You. Me. And the wee one," Harry whispered to her as the creaking of the old rusted hinges of their cell could be heard. "You'll see. I promise you."

She whimpered as they dragged Harry away.

And though she head his screams echoing from above, she knew it was only his body they were breaking. The rest of him... the rest of him always went somewhere else.

o0o

"Oh my God!"

"Luna! LUNA!" An almost inhuman, beastly snarl. "Don't you fucking touch her!"

"Stun him! Drug him! Do something and get him out of here!"

The cell was filled with a sudden surge of power. Like an explosion that had been paused only now come to begin detonation.

The aurors fell back, and Harry ran. It hurt to move. His body shook. His bones were brittle and his muscles weak. But it was just what he needed.

The skeletal figure of Harry Potter grabbed the poor, pale waif of a girl up in his too-thin arms, her distended belly shielded between the two of them. "Harry..." she whispered against his shoulder as he held her tight. "Harry."

"I'm here Luna. I'm here.”

o0o

When he woke it was to discover he was tied down to the bed. Instantly he struggled against his bonds. "LUNA!" he cried out, not able to see her. "LUNA!"

His throat was raw from screaming.

His magic fought against the bonds. Against the chains. Pulsing. Vibrating. But never breaking free.

His breathing came as broken sobs when at last he ceased struggling. He turned his head to the left towards the nearest door. His arms bereft of the subtle weight of the girl he'd swore to protect. Swore to keep safe in the dark and keep watch over. He always watched the door at night. Especially after she'd started to... She might not be there with him, but he knew she was close. He could feel her. Feel the child she had inside her.

His child.

Not by choice.

But he loved it all the same.

o0o

He said nothing for two months.

He focused on the hum of his magic. Dampened as it was, he could not engineer an escape. Not really. But he could still feel them. He could still feel the thrum of magic and the little heartbeat.

Lucius Malfoy could not break him.

Bellatrix and the LeStranges could not break him.

Not even the Dark Lord could break his mind.

No - he would wait. And he would watch. And he would be with them again soon.

o0o

The safe house was in chaos as Harry Potter tore through it.

"LUNA!" he shouted, the only word he had been saying, shouting, ever since they had been rescued from the dungeons of Malfoy Manor.

"LUNA!"

"Harry wait! You need to-" Ron started before he was thrown back and out of Harry's way as he came at last to the final door. His magic was singing. Stronger than it had been before his capture and torture.

The rage, the anger and the pain that he had carefully cultivated inside his mind to keep sane - to keep from breaking - had wrenched the door from the hinges.

The medi-witches screamed as he stalked in to claim what was his. He stopped only when the dreamy silvery blue-grey eyes turned their gaze upon him and a weak smile played on her tired lips. She didn't say anything. Her gaze, her slow nod, said it all. Harry moved swiftly, protectively towards the woman in the bed. For she was no longer a girl. Not after all she had endured in the abyss with him.

There was a commotion, but he heard a familiar voice - kind - warm - motherly - a Scottish burr to it. That voice commanding everyone to stand down. Begging them. Pleading with them to not fight around the newborn.

The newborn that Harry gently lifted from it's mother's arms. Cradling it to his chest gently. Protectively. The words he spoke could only be heard by one - the woman lying in the bed, pale and still sweating from the horrors of childbirth on her still too-thin and malnourished body.

Minerva shivered when haunted green eyes looked up at her. Pain. Anger. Hands that knew only wrath now held onto something so small and precious as if it were the most valuable thing in the world. Sadness, she saw in those once proud green eyes.

But also... Shame as he seemed to realize that his old head of house had put the pieces together of the scene before her.

It was then she knew, her suspicions confirmed from when she had first laid eyes on the pair of them, clinging to one another even in forced sleep. She knew the foul things that had been forced upon the both of them. And though she had no children of her own, a mother's rage burned inside her now. The housecoat had become the lioness.

For the first time since she herself was a young, a fresh faced Hogwarts first year, Minerva McGonogall experienced an episode of accidental magic as her fury summoned up the strongest storm Scotland had seen in over two hundred years.

o0o

They had named him Cedric Hadrian Potter.

Heir of House Potter and House Black.

Though it could never be officially recognized.

Born out of wedlock from a magically forced union. She under imperius and he under powerful mind altering potions.

The child was born a squib.

Harry and Luna, though their love for one another could never be more than a brother for his sister, did not love their son any less for what he was or for the circumstances of his birth.

They lived in hiding. Protected under every last obscure spell and charm Hermione Granger could find and perfect.

But even that... Not even that was enough to stop Voldemort from trying to seek out his prize.

Luna died in the attack with Fred Weasley, the two of them protecting Harry and the child. And with their deaths, placing a powerful enchantment upon the boy.

Cedric Potter lost his mother and uncle the same age Harry Potter had lost both his parents.

o0o

When Hagrid was killed, Harry drank himself into a stupor.

That was also the first time he had told anyone how and why his son was conceived.

Voldemort's false body was failing him. He needed a new one.

The ritual he had found called for a magically inert host capable of holding magic but not possessing it of it's own accord. And what better way to get a new host than to humiliate his deadly enemy at the same time?

"The fucker wants to age him up to an adult, keep his brain shut down, and force himself into the body like he fucking owns it!"

That's why the child of the most powerful wizard to walk the earth since Merlin was a squib. Because he was meant to be a vessel, a container, for something far more unnatural.

Hermione vomited. Ron and Neville had to excuse themselves.

Harry toasted to whatever god had tipped off the Light so that they found Harry and Luna when they did, saving his defenseless son from such a horrific fate.

o0o

There were so few left who knew Harry's son existed.

And as long as Harry had Cedric with him, the boy would never be safe. And Harry would never do what needed to be done.

Hermione made contact with a muggle relation of hers. A well connected woman who had been helping smuggle muggleborns and squibs out of the country for months.

Harry made the woman swear an oath on her life that she would protect his son until he could come back and reclaim him.

"I want your word, Ms. Carter. You will do everything you can to keep Cedric safe."

Through Hermione the woman sent regular reports back to Harry about the boys growth and progress. Sometimes even muggle pictures. Harry kept the letters and pictures close. A reminder of what he was fighting for. What he had to lose if he failed.

o0o

Harry Potter died in the Forbidden Forest during the Battle of Hogwarts.

When he came back to life, he slew the Dark Lord Voldemort moments before succumbing to magical exhaustion as his magic, now become one with the legendary Deathly Hallows, cocooned him and kept him in a death-like state.

His coma lasted a year and a day from the date of Voldemort's defeat.

Cedric Potter was 5 years old when his father became The Master of Death at age 24.

o0o

Hermione had lost contact with the muggle woman when Harry had entered into the coma.

Cedric Potter, being a squib, did not have enough magic in him for her to trace and locate him.

When Harry awoke, he could feel the thread of magic between himself and his child. Thin. Taut. But still there.

When he found his son, he watched from afar beneath the invisibility cloak.

It was Anthony Edward Stark's 6th birthday.

He didn't know he was adopted.

o0o

Anthony was twelve when he started to think he might be adopted.

After all, if he had been a true born Stark, maybe then Howard would have made more time to spend with his only son and heir.

He fell sick with a mysterious disease that summer.

Aunt Peg had been the one to bring in a specialist from England to look him over.

He'd never forget the haunted green eyes that had seemed to stare so deep into him during that visit.

o0o

Aunt Peg and Howard argued a lot after Anthony was well again.

She did what no one else dared ever do.

She slapped him. Right across the face.

After that, whenever he was sick specialist doctors would come out to the house. They avoided taking him to the hospital whenever they could.

As he grew up, Anthony Stark always hated dealing with regular doctors and hospitals.

He never told anyone outside of Aunt Peg why.

o0o

Tony - and it was most definitely Tony now because only Howard called him Anthony - ran away after graduating MIT at 15.

He had found Maria Stark's medical records.

"Eight miscarriages! EIGHT!" Tony had ranted at Aunt Peg when he'd unexpectedly landed on her doorstep. "She finally had to have an operation to essentially gut herself to make him stop knocking her up!"

"Tony-"

"Did you know? Did you know she had this done before I was born!"

"No. it was not something spoken freely about even amongst one's peers."

"But you knew I was adopted, didn't you?"

She nodded. "I was the one who brought you to Howard and Maria in the first place. And it was only supposed to be temporary until it was safe for you to be with your father again."

It wasn't until Tony turned up on her doorstep again, aged 17 and in the two weeks after Howard and Maria's death that he asked about his birth parents.

o0o

In the aftermath of Howard and Maria Stark’s untimely death, Tony laid low. He had a deal with Obie. Obie runs the company for him until he turned 21 - the age he was going to be when Howard at least started to consider retiring and passing the company to him.

He would, in turn, spend that time trying to sort his life out.

It didn't go so well.

But one good thing did come out of that time of his life. The first Christmas after Howard and Maria's death, Aunt Peg took him to England to visit her relatives.

Christmas Eve found him standing in a graveyard, black hair a wild mess as he'd been tugging and twisting it in the cold while searching for the headstone.

It had taken him ages to find the place. Hell, Godric's Hollow wasn't even on a map. He'd had to rely on word of mouth, and even then hardly believed he'd actually find what he was looking for.

And now, here he stood. An old, old photograph in his hand of a fair skinned pale haired woman - no - girl. The date on the tombstone shows she'd died young.

"Luna Lovegood," he said, looking from the photo to the name on the headstone.

Tony did not keep track of how long he stood there, shivering in the cold despite his warm jacket.

o0o

On his second visit, Boxing Day, to the cemetery he noticed fresh cut sprigs of mistletoe were laid out before the tombstone. A young man about his own age, shaggy brown hair, was knelt down arranging them, and the assortment of flowers that had been brought to the site. He glanced around to see a few other graves had been given similar attention.

But this one in particular unsettled him.

The man at the grave side froze for only a moment before he was on his feet facing Tony, his stance one clearly of confrontation while brown hair had seemed to change into a fiery orange - no, still brown - was it his imagination then? Yes. Had to be. Hair didn't normally do things like that. Not without a box of cheap hair dye and a few hours to waste. "Who the bloody hell are you?"

Confidence and annoyance melded together inside him. "How the hell do you not know who I am?" he asked, legitimately surprised that someone didn't know his face on sight. After all, he might have been 17 but his gorgeous mug had graced a fair too many magazine covers and newspaper headlines thanks to dear old Howard. "Do you not get Time Magazine out here? A TV set? Radio?" As he continued on, the man stared at him, brow furrowed in confusion.

"My God you must come from one of those little places without electricity and running water."

"Are you insinuating I'm some unintelligent primitive muggle?"

"I don't know what the hell a muggle is but sure, whatever kid," Tony snapped back. "Mind taking off I want a bit of privacy to pay my respects."

Tony didn't like the way the other guy was looking at him. It made him uneasy. The same way some of Aunt Peg's old war contacts did. After a tense staring contest the man finally sighed and nodded. "I got to get back to work anyway," he muttered, brushing past Tony as he left.

The bizarre, shaggy man was soon forgotten as Tony stood, just as he had before, staring at the cold marble tombstone of the woman that gave birth to him. "So," he said. "I did some digging and Luna Lovegood doesn't officially exist. I don't even know if that's your real name. Peg's never actually met you." He continued to ramble on, expressing his frustration of not being able to find anything about the woman that had been buried there. The woman that had given birth to him. It was like she was some sort of ghost. A non-person.

"Who the hell were you mom?" he said in frustration near the end, unawares that his entire one sided conversation with the gravestone was being listened to.

o0o

Ted Lupin and Harry Potter had a tradition of sorts. Every Christmas holiday, usually the day before Christmas Eve, but sometimes on Boxing Day, they would visit the cemetery in Godric's Hollow. It wasn't much, and Harry knew for a fact that it was just bodies in the earth - their souls already having departed for the next great adventure - but it gave his godson comfort all the same.

They would lay out the favorite flowers or plants of their lost loved ones. Ted often would sit at the end of his parents' graves and tell them all about his hijinx at Hogwarts. His grades, which Harry had always said his dad would be very proud of. His pranks - both his successes and failures - and his friends. Harry had used to do the same thing when he'd first found his own parents buried there during the war.

Not so much now.

He'd stopped coming after a while. After the year Ted had watched him fall to his knees with a bottle of firewhisky, sobbing and begging Luna to forgive him for something he'd done. That whatever it was he'd done it because he thought it was the right thing to do. All Ted had been able to figure out was it had to do with their son Cedric. The child he'd never met but knew because his aunts and uncles had told him why, sometimes, Harry would lock himself away for a week in a vault that would contain his magic when he couldn't control it, and his grief, anymore.

So, after that it was up to Ted to bring the flowers and the plants each year, and tend the graves and tell the latest family stories. He always saved Luna for last. Just like Harry always had. Laying out the mistletoe because, as Harry had often said, that's where the Nargles liked to make their nests this time of year.

When it was clear the muggle wouldn't be going away, and in fact wanted to stand near the grave of his godfather's closest friend, Ted's overprotective instinct went into overdrive. He silently cast an eavesdropping charm and hid himself nearby with a notice-me-not.

That night found Ted Lupin, wide eyed and still in shock as he was banging on the door of the Burrow, waking up half the house with his excited shouts.

It was uncle Ron who'd answered the door. "Teddy? What the-"

The young man pushed past him into the house. "Where's Harry? I need to talk to him. It's... It's... God it's..."

Hermione came down the last few steps with a yawn and an annoyed look as further up the stairs various heads poked out of doors to see what all the commotion was about. "Teddy? It's three in the morning, what are you-"

"Harry. Where is he?"

"Have you checked Grimmauld?"

"He's not there. And not at Potter Manor either. And not at Hogwarts. Or the Auror barracks. I tried a Patronus but it came back unable to find him."

Husband and wife looked to one another a long moment. "The vault?" Hermione asked. He did tend to shut himself away this time of year. And the vault was impenetrable by all magic save that of house elves.

Ron shook his head. "No. Kreacher always lets us know when he's locked in. Just in case he..." The red head let his words trail off. They all knew why only the house elves could get in or out. It wasn't just a containment vault... it was a tomb. "I'll check with Robbards. See if maybe Harry's been sent out on assignment. When he goes undercover, he goes completely off the map."

Hermione nodded her agreement, then set about getting Teddy to the kitchen. Once he was settled, his hands no longer shaking in excitement but instead now steadily holding a warm mug of hot chocolate, he let himself relax some.

"What's got you so worked up now? What's so important that you've got to find Harry right this instant?"

"I... You know I'm the one that... the cemetery. Since Harry doesn't anymore." She nodded to him to continue. He tried to find the right words to piece together. He still wasn't one hundred percent certain, but there was no reason that he anyone outside of the family should be there. Especially a muggle. Finally, he nodded. "I think... I think I found Cedric."

Hermione's cup shattered when it hit the floor. "RONALD!"

o0o

Tony had checked the dates on the tombstone - specifically the death date - against anything he could find. Old newspaper clippings. News reels. Surely there must be an obituary for Luna Lovegood SOMEWHERE out there.

Some kind of evidence that that this woman had existed.

He was ready to give up when he stumbled across something in the attic while trying to find things to do.

When Aunt Peg came back that night from whatever it was that had pulled her away for the day, it was to find Tony sitting in the living-room, the box turned on its side and the contents carefully arranged on the table in front of him.

"Tony... You-"

She stopped when he held up a newspaper. A newspaper that should have been quite ordinary. Only... "Why do the pictures move? This is impossible. It defies all logic and reason."

"You weren't supposed to find out this way."

"Clearly."

"Please Tony, understand that I could not tell you anything. I swore to keep you safe."

"What the hell is this and who the hell am I?"

o0o

The moment Harry Potter had returned from assignment in Siberia he was set upon by patroni and howlers demanding his attention.

But it was the common muggle envelope that had caught his attention first. One he looked forward to twice a year... Though why he was getting one now and not closer to when Luna and Fred...

He shook his head and tore open the envelope and looked at the card inside. It was a muggle Christmas card. He frowned, looking down at the delicate handwriting scrawled inside.

New Year means new beginnings. He knows. Come to the place we met.

Harry cleared the rest of his schedule, packed a small overnight back, and left for the Burrow. It was time to come clean to his family. It was time to tell them everything from his time locked in Malfoy Manor up until, well, now.

o0o

Harry had not been expecting to see Ted at the Burrow. Though he really should have given the time of year it was.

The moment he set foot on the property he had an arm full of redheads all fighting to talk to him at once about Ted's discovery at the cemetery in Godric's Hollow.

He went to bed that night with a large red hand-print on his cheek that still stung the next morning. A gift from Hermione when he admitted that he'd known where his son was since the boy's sixth birthday.

She admitted that she'd spat in his coffee - a petty, childish thing to do but she was just so upset at him over keeping such a huge secret from her and Ron - after he had explained why he had to leave the boy where he was.

It wasn't that he didn't love his son. He'd gone straight to Luna - or rather her memorial in Godric's Hollow - with a bottle of firewhisky, a black eye, and two cracked ribs after a fist fight with his son's adoptive father. And oh how he'd begged for the forgiveness that in life she would have happily gave, but in death he could never receive.

He didn't tell anyone, however, that in a few days time he would be seeing him for the first time since he was a child.

o0o

Tony was annoyed. He kept checking his watch.

Aunt Peg sat in her favorite chair by the fire, sipping her tea.

"Where is the bastard?" Tony snapped, leaning forward on the sofa. "I could be out there getting my drink on with all the lovely ladies of London. It's New Years Eve, Peg! I'm supposed to be celebrating with beer and scotch and..... you've made tea!" he complained loudly, then glared at the little finger sandwiches on the fine china platter next to the full service tea set. "It's so.... so..."

"He'll be here," she said, glancing to the mantle clock above the fireplace. "His people are very superstitious. He is likely trying to time his arrival for just the right moment to prevent bad luck."

Just as she'd finished speaking she set her saucer with the teacup down on the tea service tray. As she picked up one of the delicate sandwiches the flames in the fireplace grew suddenly and dangerously rather large and...

"Is that green? Am I seeing green fire?"

And out stumbled a slightly singed, a little scruffy and unkempt man in muggle attire.

And he looked..

"If you're supposed to be my sperm donor, then how the hell do you look like you're not much older than me?"

Harry stared at him. This was certainly not the type of young man he'd been expecting. Then again he recalled his own smart arse mouth at that age. A thought that made him wince just a bit.

"Uh... Hi," Harry managed to finally get out, glancing at the muggle woman quietly smirking at him while eating a little finger sandwich. He brushed a bit of soot off his arm before pushing the sleeves up of the dark red shirt he wore under a...

"Aunt Peg, are you sure this is a wizard? Looks like some guy from loitering outside a gas station."

"What? Were you expecting point hats and big black robes and have me come flying in on a bloody broomstick?" Harry bit back at him, venom in his words. Oh how he hated the muggle stories.

"Frankly yes. It's the least you could do after abandoning me for my entire life," Tony snapped, crossing his arms and leaning back to sit on the sofa to get more comfortable.

Peggy did her best not to chuckle as the wizard in her living room went on about stumbling out of the fireplace is just going to have to be good enough.

It was what followed that caught her off guard and caused her to choke on her tea in disbelief. The young man - no, the young looking soldier, she had to remind herself - very loudly and with a hint of anger in his voice declared he didn't abandon the boy and in fact would have taken him right back home when he'd come to get him if Howard hadn't called security when it was clear he was soundly getting his arse kicked seven ways to Sunday.

"So why didn't you come back to try again?"

"I did. And the bastard took out extra security. Special security. He'd rather have seen you die than let me get the proper kind of medical care to you. Maria smuggled me and a proper wizard healer in to get your dragon pox under control. Those muggle medicines can't treat something that's a magical malady no matter what that buffoon used to say."

And then, they were at the crux of the matter.

Harry hated Howard Stark with every fiber of his being. But... He didn't have to take the child in. He didn't have to raise, though his parenting was shit, someone else's son as his own. But he did regardless.

Tony stared at him in thought for a long moment before he uncrossed his arms, made himself look as casual as possible and stretched his arms along the back of the sofa. "So... I'm not calling you dad, father, or any of that shit. You look old enough to be my brother. And I'm not lending you money."

"Yeah, well... I don't need it. I'm the second richest man in Europe." Harry ran a hand through his unruly hair with a defeated sigh and summoned a chair closer to where he was standing.

"So who's the first?"

"Your uncle George."

o0o

The next time Harry met with Tony and Peggy Carter, he made sure to bring Hermione along.

They both also made sure to wear pointy hats, garish robes, and ride in on broomsticks.

o0o

The first time Harry Potter met Nick Fury was after Peggy Carter finally, and for real this time, retired. Fury tried to recruit him for SHIELD, though it wasn't called SHIELD at the time. With Harry's combat experience, and reputation in espionage as he worked for WARD, the more... militaristic arm of the ICW, Fury believed he would make a great asset.

Harry declined the offer.

When asked later how his meeting with a potential recruit went, Fury looked at his second in command like he'd grown a second head and asked him to dance with it.

Needless to say, only one man walked away from that meeting with a memory of it even taking place.

o0o

It had taken time, and a lot of trial and error right along with patience, but two years after having properly met in Peggy Carter's home, Tony had agreed to visit for Christmas.

Molly Weasley had three sweaters made for him already, unsure if she should go with the A for Anthony, T for Tony, or C for his birth name of Cedric.

Ginny actually made an effort to stick around for the first time since Harry clearly snubbed her romantic attempts in favor of more sisterly ones.

Rather than using floo, portkey, or apparition Harry chose to use the more conventional means of muggle transportation in getting Tony to the Burrow. The main benefit of this was to have the time to prepare him for the man's first exposure (and hopefully not the last) to a common Wizarding home.

It was one thing to see a picture of the impossible structure, haphazardly climbing into the sky with entire floors that looked like their mere existence could defy the laws of physics. It was an entirely different thing to be standing in the front garden and staring up at the thing in person.

Tony could hear a door open but didn't tear his gaze away from the building as his mind worked overtime trying to mathematically prove what he was seeing was even possible - but the math and the visual evidence just didn't match up.

"Harry! Didn't expect you back 'till closer to dinner."

"I told you guys how long the drive was going to be. Get out here and help me get his stuff, will you."

Not long after Tony had forgotten the mathematical impossibility of the building itself and sat staring at the pots and pans washing themselves in the kitchen sink, all the while demanding that there had to be some kind of scientific explanation for everything he was seeing.

Because. That. Was. Absolutely. Impossible. And. Broke. Physics.

Harry had only shook his head, gave a slight chuckle, muttered that a wizard did it, and was grateful that Bill had the foresight to take most of the family out to the shops for last minute Christmas buying.

o0o

When it became too much, Tony had wandered off. Harry waited a while before going out to look for him in the fields surrounding the Burrow. He found the young man sitting on a log tossing pebbles into a small pond.

"Does it bother you, Tony? Learning you have this whole other half of you but still not quite fitting into it?"

"No," he said as Harry dropped down to sit on the log beside him. "I don't know." Tony tossed a few more pebbles. "Yes. It does."

"Yeah... the family can be a bit... much."

"It doesn't help that you're apparently some kind of war hero."

Harry sighed and Tony could feel the man's shoulders start to sag. "They told you about that then."

Tony shook his head. "They didn't have to. Spent my whole life living in the shadow of war heroes. Spoon fed stories of a guy called Captain America. You ever heard of him?"

"Briefly. We had a muggle studies class in school. He came up when we were learning about how muggles wage war. Though half the time what we learned in that class was complete dragon shite."

"Well, that guy was real alright. Friends with my d- Howard."

"You can call him your dad. As much of a bastard as he was, he still raised you."

"You're doing that fake nice British thing again. My old butler used to do that all the time."

Harry chuckled as he picked up a handful of pebbles. "Well... I AM a war hero. The stories they've been telling you are mostly true. But it's not a status I'm exactly proud of. I might have won the war for us, but the cost was a lot more than I was willing to pay. In the end I died. I thought then I could finally rest. Be with my parents and your mother again."

Tony twisted his upper body to stare at him. "You died? You actually died? Why didn't anyone tell me THAT part of the story?"

"Because they don't know what happened. Not really. Clearly I'm alive again but-"

"You were 24 when you died," Tony said as if it were simply just another fact or figure in an equation. The puzzle pieces were sliding into place quickly as he sorted through all of the information he had learned in the last couple of years from their letter exchanges. Everything he had been told since his arrival and witnessed with his own eyes. It all suddenly made sense now. "Somehow when you came back to life the aging process completely stopped for you. It's why you still look the same but your friends are clearly a lot older than you. Hermione is going gray and her husband's hairline is, well, I'm surprised he still has one."

Harry stared at him as a smile slowly spread across his lips. For the first time since they'd properly met Tony saw the smile reach the man's impossibly green eyes. "I knew you were smart. I just figured it was Howard's influence. I should have realized..."

"That I'm not just smart, I'm a genius?"

"Just like your mother," he said back. "You've got a bit of my looks. The Potter hair especially. But you've got her brain between your ears. Luckily you were raised muggle where something like that is celebrated. If you'd been raised with my people... well... it never ends well."

"Tell me about her," Tony said after a while.

Harry smiled again. "Luna was a year younger than me and was good friends with your aunt Ginny. Everyone thought she was just absolutely nutters because she was so weird. Wore radishes - actual radishes - for earrings. She was picked on and made fun of for being so eccentric but she didn't give a damn what people thought of her. Hell, she was known back then as Loony Lovegood. But once you really got to know her she was absolutely brilliant," Harry said softly. "And impossibly kind..."

o0o

Tony wasn't pleased to discover that magic and technology didn't mix with the exception of some very old, very analog technology. Like cars. Or motorcycles.

Speaking of... he told Harry the next time he wanted to go off and die, Tony called dibs on the old flying motorcycle.

The following birthday he found a shiny new toy on two wheels with a big red and gold ribbon - the same kind of ribbon he'd gotten used to seeing on Christmas gifts from Harry since the two had reconnected - sitting in his locked garage. There was paperwork with it as well as a card.

It has an invisibility charm built in. Not exactly legal so don't get caught. - Harry

o0o

Pepper Potts was hired the year Obadiah tried to force Tony to stay in America for Christmas.

Her first act as his PA was to ensure Obie didn't try to follow him.

He didn't like lying to her. She was the best PA he'd had in ages. But he knew he couldn't tell her why he had to go, and why he desperately needed to ensure Obadiah didn't find out anything about his trip.

Pepper had waved to Tony from the tarmac as he boarded the plane, smiling despite the fact she wanted to just heave a great sigh. Her phone rang. She looked down at the number and gave a small smile.

At that moment, at a completely different airport, Obadiah Stane and a few of his cronies were fuming while Happy Hogan sent texts to the new PA, Pepper, about how funny it was to watch.

o0o

Things had been going really well for years.

Tony flew out to England for Christmas, and Harry would pop in - sometimes literally - for a long weekend between work assignments.

Due to Harry's outward appearance he was introduced to Pepper Potts as a nephew of old family friend Peggy Carter. Harry was, of course, careful to use a touch of glamours to make him appear slightly older when he needed to.

And then the accident happened. The kidnapping.

Harry put Pepper in touch with Hermione, making sure his old friend knew the situation and what Pepper believed the relationship between the two to be.

And then he locked himself away for two weeks in The Vault with strict instructions that the moment anyone knew anything, Kreacher was to come and get him back out.

By the time a month had passed and Tony was still missing, Harry did something he hadn't done since the war. he picked up the Elder Wand, grabbed his invisibility cloak, hung the resurrection stone around his neck, and stole a dragon.

For the following two months, muggle satellite imagery of the area in Afghanistan where Tony Stark disappeared seemed to be sporadic - something was interfering with the signal. And when it would clear back up it looked like some serious fighting had taken place.

The military assumed it was rival terrorist groups.

The ICW knew it was a pissed off wizard hunting the area with what amounted to a giant flamethrower.

And the men hired to kidnap and kill Tony Stark pushed harder and harder for the man and his assistant of circumstance to hurry up and build that Jericho. The noose was tightening, and whomever was attacking their cells throughout the area - be it the military or other rival militias - it would only be a matter of time before they, too, came under attack.

o0o

For three months through torture, pain, and bodily mutilation, Tony Stark never gave up. He never gave in.

He knew all about magic and the wonderful things it could do.

And as he had stared down at his chest, first at the crude mechanism Yinsen had installed and then later the glowing blue of the miniaturized arc reactor, he also knew that magic would not save him now. Could not. Whatever his real father's family could do, whatever Harry might be able to try - he knew it wouldn't work. Because technology and magic don't get on well.

And now he had a gaping hole in his chest with a piece of tech that was keeping him alive.

He also knew simply due to how long he had been held against his will, that the military wouldn't be an option. Rhodes, sure. The rest of the stiffs and brass? No a chance in hell. They were too deep in the cave system. Too well concealed.

Then they came demanding he build the Jericho, and he managed to buy just a little more time. Just one more day. Just one more week. Anything at all to give him time to finish up his project. Get him and Yinsen out of there.

o0o

While the military brass had no idea what was going on with the equipment in Afghanistan, James Rhodes had an inkling.

He fought tooth and nail to get even a small search party out to keep looking for his best friend.

It wasn't until he noticed the glassy eyed stare of the helicopter pilot and noticed the man in dragon-hides sitting across from him for the first time that he knew. He knew without a doubt the satellite signal disruptions, the destruction of half the cave systems and cells in the last three months had been this man's doing. His gaze cut to the insignia on the man's chest, the triangle and circle bisected with a jagged line. One that matched the scar hidden beneath the hood concealing his face.

"You know where he is," Rhodes said. "You imperiused the pilots to take us straight to him."

The hooded head nodded.

"Why not just extract him yourself?"

"It's complicated."

"For you of all people?"

A slow nod. "Especially for me." Head turned towards the open side of the helicopter. Towards the desert. "I've been keeping watch from a distance. I can't get too close. It's too dangerous for me to go near him."

"I can't believe it. The great Harry Potter's afraid of a no-maj-"

A scoff. A mocking hand to the chest, and that tone... so very much like his best friend feigning offense. "Excuse you? Firstly he's a squib. Don't insult him by comparing him to the common man. We both know that mind alone is worth a hundred average muggles at least. Secondly, technology and magic cannot mix." He stood, stepping to the open side. "This is my stop."

"Wait! What do you mean-" But he never finished as the man dropped from the helicopter. Rhodes jumped to his feet to look out, but only saw the endless expanse of desert sand.

Ten minutes later they had landed, and James was clutching his friend, trying to haul him up off the ground and seeing the machine embedded into his chest. It didn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

Magic couldn't be used around Tony Stark. Otherwise, his chest would explode.

**Author's Note:**

> If I make this a series then I'll be pulling in some Captain America next.


End file.
